LANSING -- Nearly one-third of Republican lawmakers in the state House have signed on to support a controversial ballot proposal to ban racial preferences in state college admissions, hiring and contracting.

Their support, announced Tuesday by Ward Connerly, a California businessman and anti-affirmative action activist leading the drive, signals a split within the GOP. State Republican Chairman Betsy DeVos announced earlier this month that she opposed the proposal, calling it ill-advised and unnecessary.

Connerly, who spearheaded successful campaigns to ban affirmative action in California and Washington, is to appear at the Capitol this morning, with some legislative allies, to tout his Michigan Civil Rights Initiative.

State Rep. Leon Drolet, R-Clinton Township, helped recruit support and said Tuesday that Michigan is ready for the initiative.

"I think it's hundreds of years overdue that government stop treating people differently because of their skin color or race," he said. "Every time government has gotten involved with treating people differently it's been disastrous."

The group plans to draft language for a stateconstitutional amendment, collect petition signatures and place the issue before voters in November 2004.

Connerly announced his plans earlier this month after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the use of race in admissions decisions at the University of Michigan. Democratic and Republican leaders quickly denounced the proposal.

DeVos spokesman Greg McNeilly said Tuesday that party leaders believe the initiative's objectives could be better met by improving public education for minority students so that preferences in admissions are unnecessary.

A divisive ballot proposal would interfere with Republicans' goal of racial reconciliation, he said.

Political observers also have suggested that Republican leaders worry that an anti-affirmative action ballot question could increase turnout among Democratic voters and hurt President George W. Bush's re-election chances.

McNeilly rejected that speculation Tuesday, noting that he and DeVos backed the school voucher ballot proposal in 2000, despite concerns by former Gov. John Engler and others that it could hurt Bush.

House Speaker Rick Johnson, R-LeRoy, said Tuesday that he hasn't taken a position on the ballot proposal but would neither encourage nor discourage members of his caucus from becoming involved.

Contact DAWSON BELL at 313-222-6604 or dbell@freepress.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

_________

Affirmative Action:
What Michigan Can Really Learn from California
By Nancy Cantor

This essay appeared as a guest column in The Detroit News May 17, 1999.
At California's flagship public universities, Berkeley and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), admission levels of underrepresented minorities -- Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans -- remain well below where they were prior to Proposition 209, the voter initiative that banned the use of race in university admissions. At Berkeley, they are down 44 percent and at UCLA they are down 36 percent from pre-Proposition 209 levels.

A recent spate of news articles and editorials have glossed over these ugly effects of Proposition 209 at California's flagship institutions, focusing instead on increases in the number of underrepresented minorities offered admission to any of the eight undergraduate campuses within the University of California system. In fact, these statistics have been used to suggest that those who fear a sharp drop in the racial diversity at the University of Michigan if race is no part of admissions decisions are merely "crying wolf." Far from it.

Consider what has happened in the past two years at Berkeley, one of our nation's most preeminent universities -- and the institution in the UC system most like the University of Michigan. In 1998, the first year with race-blind admissions in California, the combined admission of underrepresented minorities in the undergraduate population at Berkeley plummeted from 1,897 to 818, a 57 percent drop from the previous year. So this year when Berkeley officials announced a 29 percent increase in admissions of underrepresented minorities from 1998 -- 818 to 1,056 -- it was no surprise that supporters of affirmative action did not welcome the news as proof that affirmative action is no longer necessary.

At UCLA, the story is largely the same. In 1998, admissions of underrepresented minorities in the undergraduate population decreased 36 percent from the previous year (from 2,121 to 1,358). Unlike Berkeley, however, UCLA did not post even an increase in its underrepresented minority admissions this year. At the current levels, admissions of underrepresented minorities at UCLA therefore remain 36 percent below 1997 rates.

The law schools at Berkeley and UCLA have experienced similar declines in the admission of underrepresented minorities since the affirmative action ban went into effect for these schools: dropping a shocking 69 percent at UCLA -- from 222 in 1996 to 68 in 1998 -- and dropping 44 percent over the same time period from 172 to 96 at Berkeley (Boalt Hall Law School).

A recent editorial published by The Detroit News, citing 1999 Berkeley and UCLA admissions figures out of context, assured readers that the end of affirmative action "has not produced 'resegregation' on college campuses." That is, however, precisely what is happening in California. The ban on affirmative action is pushing disproportionate percentages of minority students into less selective schools within the California system.

For example, at the University of California at Riverside, a less selective university within the UC system, minority admissions have increased 61 percent from 1997. Opponents of affirmative action have boldly tried to paint this de facto segregation as a benefit to minority students, ignoring the evidence to the contrary. As Derek Bok and William Bowen chronicle in their recent book, The Shape of the River, minority students who attend selective universities are more likely to graduate than minority students with similar Scholastic Assessment Test scores who attend less-selective institutions.

In addition, this resegregation presents serious obstacles for any university that views racial diversity as essential to maintaining the quality of education for all students.

It is much too early to predict the long-term effects of race-blind admissions policies in California. But if we are concerned with the values of excellence, opportunity and integration in our nation's best universities, an honest approach to the data from California clearly demonstrates a continuing need for affirmative action. The experience in California, if anything, counsels caution in Michigan before taking the wrong lessons from only half-understood statistics.

Nancy Cantor is Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

_________________________

im not sure what to think about this

Mon Sep 22, 2003 9:11 pm

DM

Joined: 05 Jul 2002
Posts: 6371
Location: www.NERDTORIOUS.com

.....

Fuck that.

abacus

Mon Sep 22, 2003 9:41 pm

mortalthoughtsLAME KID

Joined: 12 Dec 2002
Posts: 11616
Location: MI

yea ...im white....

i cant really take a stance on this because to my knowledge afrimitave action has never kept me from getting a job

but to think that because of skin color a less qualifyed person might get a job<or a spot in a school> over a person who is more qulaifyed seems like just another from of prejiduce to me

but to think that racist people still arent around and that it wouldnt affect people is bullshit

Mon Sep 22, 2003 9:48 pm

the meanCertified O.G.

Joined: 31 Jul 2003
Posts: 6500
Location: philly/sacto/kauai/ohio

Re: trying to ban affrimative action what do you think?

bluntedinmichigan wrote:

"I think it's hundreds of years overdue that government stop treating people differently because of their skin color or race"

When anti-affirmative action people say shit like this it's like spitting on the grave of everyone who has been harmed in this country by its history of racism.

White people complaining about being discriminated against are lame, to put it mildly.

Constitutionally, affirmative action is perfectly legitimate. Those that claim the 14th amendment precludes it do not know their law.

I have yet to meet anyone i respect who opposes affirmative action.

Mon Sep 22, 2003 9:49 pm

mortalthoughtsLAME KID

Joined: 12 Dec 2002
Posts: 11616
Location: MI

thank you for taking my words out of context

no where did i say it should be banned

i understand we<white people> fucked up

Mon Sep 22, 2003 9:55 pm

illusion

Joined: 09 Jul 2002
Posts: 215
Location: jersey

Re: trying to ban affrimative action what do you think?

the mean wrote:

bluntedinmichigan wrote:

"I think it's hundreds of years overdue that government stop treating people differently because of their skin color or race"

When anti-affirmative action people say shit like this it's like spitting on the grave of everyone who has been harmed in this country by its history of racism.

these people have been watching too much American History X

Mon Sep 22, 2003 9:56 pm

mortalthoughtsLAME KID

Joined: 12 Dec 2002
Posts: 11616
Location: MI

Quote: White people complaining about being discriminated against are lame, to put it mildly.

so other races cant be racist????

fuck that

i grew up in the 'ghetto' in detroit for the first 9 years of my life
dont speak on something you havent experienced

Mon Sep 22, 2003 10:00 pm

the meanCertified O.G.

Joined: 31 Jul 2003
Posts: 6500
Location: philly/sacto/kauai/ohio

bluntedinmichigan wrote: thank you for taking my words out of context

no where did i say it should be banned

i understand we<white people> fucked up

Sorry, i should have made clear that i was quoting someone else from the article you posted. That wasn't directed to you necessarily.

Mon Sep 22, 2003 10:00 pm

sequence

Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 2182
Location: www.anteuppdx.com

The programs need to be set up in such a way as to focus upon the socio-economic status of the students in question, with particular attention to the school district they were forced into. Instead of awarding points to those students who went to top tier high schools, they should attempt to recruit more extensively in those high schools in poorer urban and rural areas and give those students with ambition from said schools, extra points.

The problem with affirmative action as it stands is that in certain areas of the country, in fact in quite a few, the distinction between those who are underpriviledged, particularly with regards to the schooling they receive, is based much more upon the income brackets than the race. I'm a large portion Native American (large enough to be included in the realm of those who receive additional points on college applications and other such things) and many of the other kids from my hometown who had less money and chances than I did as a child did not receive the aid I did when it came to college, and I feel that that was unfair. I do not feel that I should not have received some sort of priviledging as I grow up in an extremely small, poor town with a school district to match, and I had a sufficient work ethic and stats as a student to warrant the full scholarship I got for U of M, however I feel that many other kids in my hometown deserved the same treatment and weren't able to get it.

My point is, do not eliminate the affirmative action programs, but rather alter them to benefit my poor, caucazoid friends too, who don't have the same good looking transcript some cat from the wealthy suburbs of Detroit does.

Sidenote: U of M gives as many points to legacies (those students whose parents went to the school too) in the application process as they do to minorities. No one mentions that. It seems strange to me, as if one checks the population at Michigan many more of the students are legacies than minorities.

Adam.

I hope this makes sense, I'm too lazy to proofread.

Mon Sep 22, 2003 10:00 pm

mortalthoughtsLAME KID

Joined: 12 Dec 2002
Posts: 11616
Location: MI

ok

Mon Sep 22, 2003 10:03 pm

sequence

Joined: 21 Jul 2002
Posts: 2182
Location: www.anteuppdx.com

huh? do you disagree?

Mon Sep 22, 2003 10:05 pm

mortalthoughtsLAME KID

Joined: 12 Dec 2002
Posts: 11616
Location: MI

that ok was directed at the mean and yes sequence that does sound good

Mon Sep 22, 2003 10:10 pm

the meanCertified O.G.

Joined: 31 Jul 2003
Posts: 6500
Location: philly/sacto/kauai/ohio

Re: yea ...im white....

bluntedinmichigan wrote:

but to think that because of skin color a less qualifyed person might get a job<or a spot in a school> over a person who is more qulaifyed seems like just another from of prejiduce to me

What's going on in MI is specifically a reaction to school admissions so i will deal with that and leave employment for some other thread.

What the fuck does "less qualified" mean? When people say that they usually mean test scores. There are many problems with test scores. (1) They favor people with money. For example, my small business had a good month before i took the LSAT (law school admissions test) so i paid for a course. I raised my score A LOT, allowing me to get into the school i am in. If i was poor, this wouldn't have happened. (2) SAT test questions are tested out beforehand. The ones that white kids do well on get used in the real test. (3) You never hear about other things that can get you into schools with lower scores. Legacy (affirmative action for white people) is how Bush got into Yale. Athletics is another one. If someone in your family gives money to the school, etc., etc.

Affirmative action is NOT prejudice. To say that is just silly.

Mon Sep 22, 2003 10:10 pm

the meanCertified O.G.

Joined: 31 Jul 2003
Posts: 6500
Location: philly/sacto/kauai/ohio

sequence wrote:
My point is, do not eliminate the affirmative action programs, but rather alter them to benefit my poor, caucazoid friends too, who don't have the same good looking transcript some cat from the wealthy suburbs of Detroit does.

Also, the school has an interest in creating a racially diverse student body because minorities are going to contribute different things to a class discussion BECAUSE they are minorities.

Mon Sep 22, 2003 10:16 pm

mortalthoughtsLAME KID

Joined: 12 Dec 2002
Posts: 11616
Location: MI

from my understanding about employment which was mostly what that was about <i added school in there though> is that from my understanding based on the number of employees at a company a certian % of them are supposed to be minorties

and that if one person lets say white is more qualifyed then another person lets say hes mexican

the mexican might get the job over the white person so that would seem to me another form of prejdiuce
^^^^^edit : i suppose that does belong in another thread

about the school thing its been getting alot of coverage on the news lately
the thing that pisses me off is that the guy you qouted from what i posted in clinton twp is that thats where i moved out to after my mom got us out of the city which happens to be a mostly white town
no wonder the guy supports that shit

Quote: When anti-affirmative action people say shit like this it's like spitting on the grave of everyone who has been harmed in this country by its history of racism.
White people complaining about being discriminated against are lame, to put it mildly. [/qoute]

Constitutionally, affirmative action is perfectly legitimate. Those that claim the 14th amendment precludes it do not know their law.

that pretty much sums it up
except for the part i qouted you earlier....

i just o wanted to hear other peoples opionons on this banning afrimitive action thing

Mon Sep 22, 2003 10:31 pm

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